Authors

Pamela J. Smyers

Pamela J. Smyers grew up in the Brandywine Valley of Pennsylvania surrounded by Andrew Wyeth’s paintings—always pondering their hidden meanings. She has studied art since childhood and has always felt a kinship to artists’ need to create, to express their inner emotions, and to stir the emotions of others. Her medium of choice is acrylic paint on wood panels—lightly stippling (layering) washes of color on top of one another to allow all the applied colors to emerge. Pamela studied under Brandywine Valley Artist, Karl Kuerner. She is currently represented by various galleries in Pennsylvania and has exhibited work in galleries and juried exhibitions throughout Pennsylvania and Delaware. She lives in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania with her husband, two wonderful daughters, and a crazy cat and dog who make their premier appearance in this book. Pamela would like to dedicate these works to her mom, who’s help provided Pamela with the time needed to illustrate this book, to her husband, Jim, who makes it possible for her to pursue her dream and to Karl Kuerner who taught, mentored, and always believed in her.

Quote of the day

O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presagers of my speaking breast.

William Shakespeare

A book is a part of life, a manifestation of life, just as much as a tree or a horse or a star. It obeys its own rhythms, its own laws, whether it be a novel, a play, or a diary. The deep, hidden rhythm of life is always there-that of the pulse, the heart beat.

Henry Miller

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.

Ernest Hemingway

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book is made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb.

Umberto Eco

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry.

Emily Dickinson

There are books...which take rank in your life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.

George Gissing

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

James Russell Lowell

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

Samuel Butler

A book is like a man-clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.